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> This is pretty normal in any large region that has been speaking a language continually for 1600 years. Large! The thing that gets me is that, geographically

> This is pretty normal in any large region that has been speaking a language continually for 1600 years. Large! The thing that gets me is that, geographically, all of the UK would fit easily into the state of Oregon, but you'd have to be a linguist to describe even one distinctly Oregonian accent, let alone dozens. It's not surprising to me that a very old country would have so many accents, but it's surprising that they would still perpetuate into the present, after mass media, travel, and mass communication seems to have flattened or homogenized so many fine distinctions based on geographic isolation.

mikelevins 1y ago
Of course the dialects are not so densely distributed in North America, and English has only been evolving in the Americas for a few hundred years, but there are a bunch of dialects, and I find them super interesting. My paternal grandparents were honest-to-goodness Ozark hillbillies who spoke Ozark Midlands (also called South Midlands), which is very close to, and sometimes conflated with, Appalachian English. I'm in the Ozarks now and at least in the region where I live, this dialect seems to be disappearing. I still hear traces of it, but I don't think I've heard anyone really speaking it in years. That's too bad. I love that dialect--perhaps because it was the language that my grandparents spoke. If you're curious about it, you could listen to some of Terry Gross' interview with Ralph Stanley. He spoke Appalachian English, but it's indistinguishable to my ear from the language my grandparents spoke. Here's the interview at NPR: https://www.npr.org/2016/06/24/483428938/bluegrass-legend-ralph-stanley https://www.npr.org/2016/06/24/483428938/bluegrass-legend-ra...
leoedin 1y ago
I think social media is reducing local accents in a way mass travel or media never seemed to - probably because it exposes people to “cool” accents in a way that old media never did.
pessimizer 1y ago
> you'd have to be a linguist to describe even one distinctly Oregonian accent, let alone dozens. You could definitely describe two or three, but you picked a new, far flung, low-population state as an example. Britain has 14x the population of Oregon. If Oregon had two accents, you might expect Britain to have 28. Going to older eastern parts of the country, you can usually tell where people are from within probably 100 miles. You can tell Chicago from Milwaukee from Detroit from Pittsburgh from Boston. You can tell Northwest Arkansas accents from Western Arkansas accents. You can hear a parent's Texas in the accent of somebody you grew up with in Kansas. You can even tell south Jersey accents from Baltimoreans if you ask them both to say the word "Orioles." Literally impossible for a Baltimorean to say. Orirols? Orals? California has hella accents too.

mikelevins 1y ago

Of course the dialects are not so densely distributed in North America, and English has only been evolving in the Americas for a few hundred years, but there are a bunch of dialects, and I find them super interesting. My paternal grandparents were honest-to-goodness Ozark hillbillies who spoke Ozark Midlands (also called South Midlands), which is very close to, and sometimes conflated with, Appalachian English. I'm in the Ozarks now and at least in the region where I live, this dialect seems to be disappearing. I still hear traces of it, but I don't think I've heard anyone really speaking it in years. That's too bad. I love that dialect--perhaps because it was the language that my grandparents spoke. If you're curious about it, you could listen to some of Terry Gross' interview with Ralph Stanley. He spoke Appalachian English, but it's indistinguishable to my ear from the language my grandparents spoke. Here's the interview at NPR: https://www.npr.org/2016/06/24/483428938/bluegrass-legend-ralph-stanley https://www.npr.org/2016/06/24/483428938/bluegrass-legend-ra...

leoedin 1y ago

I think social media is reducing local accents in a way mass travel or media never seemed to - probably because it exposes people to “cool” accents in a way that old media never did.

pessimizer 1y ago

> you'd have to be a linguist to describe even one distinctly Oregonian accent, let alone dozens. You could definitely describe two or three, but you picked a new, far flung, low-population state as an example. Britain has 14x the population of Oregon. If Oregon had two accents, you might expect Britain to have 28. Going to older eastern parts of the country, you can usually tell where people are from within probably 100 miles. You can tell Chicago from Milwaukee from Detroit from Pittsburgh from Boston. You can tell Northwest Arkansas accents from Western Arkansas accents. You can hear a parent's Texas in the accent of somebody you grew up with in Kansas. You can even tell south Jersey accents from Baltimoreans if you ask them both to say the word "Orioles." Literally impossible for a Baltimorean to say. Orirols? Orals? California has hella accents too.